Video – Divorce Mediation Attorney Bill Leininger Explains Florida Divorce Laws Differences From Other States
Video Transcript
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Hi, I’m Ray Hrdlicka, your host for Attorneys. Media Legal Commentary and In The News, and today we’re sitting with Bill Leininger, a divorce mediation attorney in Sarasota, Florida, and Staten Island, New York. So, let’s get right into it, and Bill, I want to ask you a question about Florida.
Florida has a higher divorce rate than many other states in the nation, principally because, well, there’s a lot of second marriages down there, and there’s something interesting called a gray divorces, meaning people are getting divorces later in life. So, can you tell me what kind of unique challenges that Florida presents, Florida, obviously, the divorce situation, presents to a divorce mediation attorney such as yourself?
Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney –Sarasota FL and Staten Island, NY
I wouldn’t call it, I don’t think there are any unique challenges. I think that, as in… Every state, because rule is different by state by state, you have to be sensitive to the rules in that particular state.
For example, sometimes the older people get tripped up because they like to tell me their life story, and I’m getting every account number for sometimes millions of dollars worth of assets, notwithstanding the fact that the literature that I sent them explained to them that Florida is an open state.
Unlike New York, New Jersey, for example, you have to show your driver’s license, or your attorney has to show their attorney ID card, or the IRS or the state taxing bureau can access these records. Nobody else can look at it. They’re sealed. In New York, for example, you’d have to go to a judge and have good reasons why something that the people assumed, properly was going to be confidential, should be violated. Usually it involves questions about IRS or something like that.
So, people, many of whom lived up north, possibly their first divorce, you see, was up in, let’s say, New York or New Jersey. Hey, the lawyer said, Don’t worry about it. No one’s going to see these numbers, okay? Now, there are people who spend their lives in the state of Florida, combing their county clerk’s divorce records. Oh, this week we have more. Let’s see if I got any juicy information. So, we have to be extremely, extremely careful.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Really?
Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney –Sarasota FL and Staten Island, NY
Yes, yes, yes. So that’s something we have to be very careful about.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
So, privacy, so privacy really comes into the Florida divorce versus obviously New York. It’s something they should be very concerned about.
Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney –Sarasota FL and Staten Island, NY
Absolutely. Again, and you have to clarify, the mediation phase as opposed to the divorce phase. The divorce phase, it’s very, very difficult and very dangerous. Now, you may say, well, I heard that mediation proceedings are confidential by statute, and in the state of Florida, mediators like myself, who are certified by the Supreme Court of the State of Florida, have pure confidentiality, right? The only time we are not bound by confidentiality are basically elder abuse, child abuse. Those are the two big things. And if something is up during the mediation, I may have an obligation to divulge it. But in the absence of that, let’s say with regard to money, no, I don’t have an obligation.
Somebody could say, Well, I’m not thinking too clear today because my suspended ceiling fell on my head last night from the thousands and thousands of dollar bills that I had stuffed up there, okay? Well, that would be privileged and confidential. But if you put something in the court file, in your marital settlement agreement, for example, your financial…
So, after it’s open town and the person can find this stuff, and it’s not too hard to say, oh, oh, I forgot my password. And if you have your date of birth and your social security number and all the other stuff that they have in those documents, they may get a new password and they may steal thousands and thousands of dollars. So, we really have to be careful, and especially some of my older clients, especially who’ve been through one up north where no one could look at the records except themselves and their lawyers and the IRS. We have to be careful about that.
But other than that, we don’t have unique challenges. It is true that many of my clients in Florida are in their 70’s and 80’s. Up north in New York, most of my clients are between 35 and 65. So, there is, definitely a push upwards. And it’s because so many people, you know, older people move down to Florida that you have a lot more. Most of the cases involve lots of money. Very few cases involve custody and visitation. Most of the people, their kids are 40, 50, 60 years of age. And most of the concerns are I was a schmuck on my first divorce. I paid the lawyer $50,000, 100,000. And now I realize life is short. Let’s just settle the damn case.
And a lot of times we’ll write up schedules and try to balance it out where appropriate. And a lot of people say, yeah, I’m not going to pay a lawyer, a mediator, $100,000. We’re just going to cut a deal and we’ll split everything 50/50. So that’s how I can have a case that, let’s say, involves my last case involved $16 million worth of assets, the total fees for both the husband and the wife were less than $8,000, Well, boy, the divorce lawyer or divorce media up north, $16 million. That’s gotta be a $100,000 you know? So it’s much, much, much less expensive. And I find the people much more reasonable.
The idea for, you know, oh, well, he cheated on me 19 years ago. It was not that… important anymore, or she cheated on me, or something of that nature. They just, they’re tired. They don’t know God’s going to give them a year, five years to live. They don’t need the xxx, the agita for their remaining years. They just want to cut a deal and have peace. And as long as you understand, that’s where the people are coming from.
And you also have to be a humble mediator. You can’t say, Well, I’ve handled 1,000 cases in mediation and 5,000 in divorce and and this is the way we always do it. They’ll say, Who gives a crap that’s the way you always do it? It’s me and him or me and her, and we wanna do it this way. And the old Burger King commercials wanna have it my way, okay? And the mediator can’t be one of these pompous guys or gals and say, Well, no, that’s not the way we do it down here. No, no. You work for them and you have to say, look, these are the dangers. I want to put it in writing to cover myself from malpractice claims. But once I do that, I’ll do it. As long as it’s not illegal, I’ll put in whatever you want in the agreement. It’s your life, not mine.
So, you just… the reason I was somewhat argumentative is because you use the phrase, the unique. No, in many states, you get different personality types. You know, you have somebody who works for Mr. Green. He’s allegedly a busboy, but he really owns the Italian restaurant. And he’s driving $140,000 Mercedes and he’s claiming he makes $22,000, You have to handle that person differently.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
So, it sounds like, what you’re talking about in Florida, everybody can summarize here. Everybody should be cautious since Florida is an open record state when it comes to divorce. And divorce mediation is not public record, and any discussions with you is still confidential and privileged. So that’s a huge difference simply between the two things, a divorce attorney and a divorce mediation attorney and the process in… and obviously the difference between those two processes.
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